Air Force pilot has a found a job he loves

Wes Franklin

Tuesday

Jun 24, 2008 at 12:01 AMJun 24, 2008 at 2:37 PM

Neosho, Mo., resident Doug Serage has but one big hero in his life. It’s his son, David. A lieutenant colonel attached to the U.S. Air Force, David will soon take off for his fourth assignment in Iraq.

Neosho resident Doug Serage has but one big hero in his life. It’s his son, David.

A lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force, David will soon take off for his fourth assignment in Iraq.

The only recent photo Doug has of his youngest son is a snapshot, worn at the edges, of David posing in his flight suit near the cockpit of his fighter plane.

In the picture, David is smiling. Looking at the photo, so is his dad.

“I’m proud of him,” the elder Serage said simply.

Coming from a father about his son, those words are enough. David has followed the call of duty to the ongoing war in Iraq three times, flying his F-16 fighter jet in air support missions with the 125th Fighter Squadron, Oklahoma Air National Guard.

In July, David leaves again for his fourth 90-day stint in the land of sun and sand.

He doesn’t talk much about his Iraq assignments, Doug said. If he’s had any close calls dodging surface to air missiles or rocket propelled grenades, David hasn’t told his father about it.

But Doug knows what his son is up to over there.

During David’s last Iraq assignment, Doug got a call one Saturday from his daughter-in-law telling him to go read that day’s newspaper.

“There was an article about the 125th squadron wiping out a terrorist training base north of Baghdad,” Doug said. “I asked her ‘Was David in on that?’ She said ‘I will tell you this: He flew that day.’ That’s all she would tell me. But David had called and told her about it. He was in on it. So he’s had some combat.”

In a way, David is living his father’s own unfulfilled dream.

When the Korean War was in full swing, Doug was accepted into the Aviation Cadet Program, the forerunner of the Air Force Academy. He went through the program with high marks. But on the day he was to ship out for pilot’s training, Doug failed the eye exam and was given the heart-breaking news that he would never fly for Uncle Sam.

He was offered a chance to go to officer candidate school and stay in the Air Force as a ground specialist, but he turned it down.

“I told them I don’t want to do anything. If I can’t fly, I want out,” Doug recalled.

When the Korean conflict ended, he was given an early discharge after serving 1 year, 9 months and 21 days.

Growing up the youngest of five kids, David was well aware of his father’s career disappointment. And Doug admits that maybe his time in the Aviation Cadet Program had somewhat of an influence on David wanting to go into the Air Force.

But, he’s quick to point out that that’s not the main reason — and David certainly didn’t join up for his dad’s sake.

In fact, Doug didn’t even know David had applied to the Air Force Academy until shortly before a military officer knocked on his door wanting to interview his son, then a junior in high school.

“He’s always wanted to fly,” Doug said. “Even when he was a kid, he liked to talk about it. He did all of this on his own. I didn’t even know he was doing it, so I didn’t have any influence on him in that regard.”

But while his name was up for acceptance into the Air Force Academy, the Naval Academy took initiative and tried to enroll David there instead, Doug said, offering him an almost sure-thing appointment. There was no guarantee, however, that he would fly as a Navy pilot. David’s answer was eerily similar to one his father made decades earlier.

“He told them, ‘No. If I can’t fly, if I can’t go to the Air Force Academy, I don’t want any of it,’ ” Doug said.

David was ultimately accepted in the Air Force Academy, graduating in 1989. He spent some years flight training in North Dakota before ending up attached for three years to the Navy anyway, flying flight operations from the deck of the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the Mediterranean Sea.

Later, David was involved in the Kosovo conflict, flying his missions out of a base in Greece. On one such routine mission, while in-flight, a goose got sucked into the engine of his fighter jet.

“He was told to eject, but he didn’t do it — he stayed with the aircraft and got it back down and saved the taxpayers a little money,” Doug said.

For the past year or so, before getting ready to go serve a fourth time in Iraq, David has commanded a section of his squadron, flying scouting operations over the U.S./Mexico border and the Gulf of Mexico, reporting on possible drug activity.

In a year and half, he will be eligible for full retirement from the Air Force.

But that doesn’t mean he will actually retire from flying. David already has a job lined up as a pilot for FedEx. He can’t stop doing what he loves.

“Anytime you find a job that you love, you’ll never work another day in your life,” Doug said. “David found that job. He loves to fly.”

When not flying air missions for his country, David Serage resides in Tulsa with his wife Heidi and their four children — three girls and one boy — ages 11 to five.

Neosho Daily News

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